The Executive Director of the Initiative for Youth Awareness on Migration, Immigration, Development and Reintegration (IYAMIDR Nigeria), Comrade Solomon Okoduwa, has faulted recent remarks by the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, urging young Nigerians to embrace entrepreneurship such as akara production, insisting that the country’s worsening unemployment crisis requires comprehensive economic reforms rather than survival strategies.
In an open letter addressed to the First Lady on Sunday and titled, “When Did Akara Become a National Economic Plan? A Nation Asking for Opportunity Should Not Be Offered Survival as a Dream,” Okoduwa said while entrepreneurship remains important, it should not replace deliberate government policies aimed at creating sustainable jobs and expanding economic opportunities for young people.
Okoduwa said millions of Nigerian youths were not asking for handouts but opportunities to maximise their education, skills and talents.
“Our mothers who fry akara by 4 a.m. and our fathers who stitch shoes by roadside booths are heroes of our economy. That is our culture of survival. But survival is not a development agenda,” Okoduwa said.
Drawing from IYAMIDR Nigeria’s engagements with young people across the South-South and other parts of the country, he said the organisation had encountered many graduates, skilled artisans and entrepreneurs who remained trapped in poverty despite their qualifications and determination.
He cited the case of a 26-year-old Electrical Engineering graduate of the University of Benin who graduated with a Second Class Upper Division but has remained unemployed years after completing the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme.
Okoduwa also referred to a professionally trained welder who could not establish his own workshop because of the high cost of shop rent and lack of access to affordable financing, as well as a young mother running a small akara and puff-puff business who continues to struggle with rising food prices, increasing production costs and the burden of paying her children’s school fees.
According to him, reducing the aspirations of young Nigerians to petty trading sends a dangerous message that education, innovation and professional skills are no longer valued.
“When we reduce their entire ambition to learning a trade and frying akara, we tell over 60 per cent of our population under 25 that their degrees, skills and dreams are worthless. That is how hope becomes migration. That is why many of our brightest minds are choosing ‘Japa’ over staying in Nigeria,” Okoduwa said.
He maintained that although small businesses are critical to Nigeria’s economy, no nation has achieved economic transformation by relying solely on informal enterprises.
Okoduwa said countries such as China and India invested heavily in industrialisation, manufacturing, technology, infrastructure and export-oriented policies to drive economic growth.
“Nigeria does not have a survival deficit. We have an opportunity deficit—a deficit of capital, infrastructure, predictable policies and decent jobs that pay living wages,” he said.
He called on the Federal Government to establish a ₦500 billion Youth Enterprise Fund to provide single-digit interest loans for young entrepreneurs without collateral or political patronage.
The IYAMIDR executive director also advocated the establishment of agro-processing hubs in every senatorial district, increased investment in technology parks, innovation hubs, creative industries and industrial clusters, as well as employment programmes that provide decent wages, pensions and health insurance.
Appealing directly to the First Lady, Okoduwa urged the government to pursue policies that move Nigeria beyond economic survival to sustainable prosperity.
“A mother does not tell her hungry child to manage garri when the barn is full. She first opens the barn, then puts a hoe in the child’s hand and says, ‘Let us farm so the barn never empties again.’ That is all we are asking. Open the barn,” Okoduwa said.
He stressed that the letter was intended as a constructive contribution to national discourse on youth empowerment and economic development rather than an attack on the First Lady or the Federal Government.
Okoduwa disclosed that IYAMIDR Nigeria has active youth networks across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory and expressed the organisation’s readiness to collaborate with the Office of the First Lady and relevant government agencies to develop practical programmes that would reduce unemployment, discourage irregular migration and create sustainable livelihoods for young Nigerians.
“We love Nigeria too much to dream small for her,” Okoduwa added.
